Total billionaire wealth in the EU reached €2.4 trillion by late November, exceeding Italy's entire GDP of €2.2 trillion and approaching France's €2.9 trillion economy, a new Oxfam report found.
    • cecilkorik@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      The stupidity is happening because it benefits rich people to fill the world with stupid people. Stupid, gullible people are the key to their endlessly growing profits and wealth extraction.

      We already know how to solve stupidity. We have always known it. Education has been one of the core pillars of human civilization since antiquity. It wasn’t the first man to discover fire who changed everything, it was the person who discovered how to teach the next generation to control fire at least as well if not better than they originally did.

      Education has not failed us. Education has been sabotaged and dismantled. By rich and powerful people, for their own purposes.

      First we get rid of them rich and powerful people who have set themselves against us, then we rebuild everyone’s education and if we’re lucky, we might get to move on with our civilization eventually. Nobody promised it’s going to be easy. But it is necessary, if we wish the human race to continue, and traditionally we’ve been pretty stubbornly invested in that.

      • BigBolillo@mgtowlemmy.orgEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        Trust me there are people who even using the best education they stop being stupid is like it is in their genes.

        • frongt@lemmy.zipEnglish
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          4 months ago

          While true, they are the minority. That is not an argument against education.

        • wheezy@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          4 months ago

          Get that Nazi shit out of your brain. We all have reactionary ideas like this imbedded in us from growing up in western society. So, please, I beg you, purge that “it’s in their genes (blood)” and “iq” shit from your brain. It’s just a modern version of “blood and soil” even if you didn’t mean it that way.

          • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            0·
            4 months ago

            At first I thought they meant it like “nepo babies going to ivy leagues remain stupid and out-of-touch,” but on second glance I think you’re right. Yikes.

        • Instigate@aussie.zoneEnglish
          0·
          4 months ago

          I know people who have intellectual disabilities who are some of the loveliest and most caring people I’ve ever met. Intelligence does not dictate a person’s capacity to be a productive and caring member of society. Empathy, however, is a skill that can be taught to all but a few who are clinically psychopathic. Intelligence is not a marker of a valuable member of society - empathy and compassion are.

    • LOGIC💣@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      One reason that people are stupid is because rich people need slave labor, so they set up a system where people don’t learn to think for themselves.

        • oce 🐆@jlai.luEnglish
          0·
          4 months ago

          This makes me think, there is some kind of “system creationism” philosophy in the far left that is not unlike the Christian one. Thinking that some all powerfull entity (or group) created/designed the situation by itself rather than thinking it is the result of extremely complex historical chain of events and balance between groups and environments. By extension it leads to thinking that somehow removing the powerful entity magically solves the problem.

            • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              0·
              4 months ago

              Why would you salt the ashes if you intend to rebuild? You’re aware that that makes land inarable for generations, right?

            • RaskolnikovsAxe@lemmy.caEnglish
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              4 months ago

              You’re suggesting we burn our respective countries to the ground, full on civil war and complete destruction, fracture of civil society, starvation and economic collapse, with no guarantees about who, when or what will step into that maelstrom of human suffering, other than your assurances that it will be better than what we have now.

              Sorry, but I’m skeptical that you have a reasonable way forward.

            • dubyakay@lemmy.caEnglish
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              4 months ago

              I was just playing along with their use of language. Irregardless, it doesn’t strike me as Xi would be among billionaires.

              • thethunderwolf@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
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                4 months ago

                Actually Xi is probably the richest person on earth.

                Why? Because China is the world’s 2.5th biggest economy (2nd only to the US when counting countries, but the EU is richer than China and is often counted), and it’s the biggest dictatorship (for now, since the US is at risk of dictatorship). Being a dictator, he COULD just sell parts of the country and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be stopped if he tried. And when something can be sold and thus converted to money, it counts as wealth.

                • dubyakay@lemmy.caEnglish
                  0·
                  4 months ago

                  It’s a good thing then that he uses his power to redistribute wealth, alleviating poverty and building infrastructure.

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          4 months ago

          Again, let’s focus on problems we can solve first. That means taking the beam out of our own eye before we go around criticizing the motes in others, or however that parable goes. We have far worse problems in our own home.

    • hector@lemmy.todayEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      The rich are the root of stupidity weaponized against liberal democracy, working people, and the common good.

      Fixed by organization, innumerable groups federated on a main forum outside silicon valley’s control cooperating on what we agree on in public and private ways as we see fit. With clear moderation rules appealed to a jury of peers to prevent govt, bus groups getting their hooks in and ratfucking it all.

  • sircac@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    Who would be surprised that concentrating most resources in a few is the opposite of the common good…

  • Rhaedas@fedia.io
    0·
    4 months ago

    Screw Idiocracy. People reference it not understanding there were positives in the negatives. This is “Don’t Look Up”, that nailed our current corrupt leadership and techno-corporate lunacy, as well as ignoring what is right in front of us because shiny things are more interesting.

  • LillyPip@lemmy.caEnglish
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    4 months ago

    Capitalism is a threat to democracy.

    But thanks for getting on nearly the same page, Oxfam.

    • Hanrahan@slrpnk.netEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      Most -ism’s are the problem, every hericarical civilization throughout all of sapien time has collapsed, destroyed the local enviorment etc. Inequality is the issue.

      • fort_burp@feddit.nlEnglish
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        4 months ago

        That’s like saying “He didn’t die from getting his head blown off he died because his blood circulation was interrupted for too long”.

        Capitalism leads directly to inequality.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    So when are we going tondo what about this?

    This. Has. To. Stop.

    We cannot allow a single person or family to control a single news organization, let alone multiple. Anyone who thought that was a good or even okay idea has been, and continues to be, delusional.

    • iridebikes@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      They own so much more than the news organizations. They own the special interest groups, the lobbyists, the elected officials, the land and natural resources, every single company we buy goods and services from, the banks, the hospitals, everything. Slavery didn’t end, it just changed its business model.

  • sisyphus@leminal.spaceEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    I suspect the only time the US got close to having a representative government was the New Deal era. Most people just live their lives and don’t think in ideological terms. The ones that do are considered “too into politics” and usually believe in reform because it requires less of them than the alternative. Anyways, how about that bread and circuses?

  • NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    We’ve been pointing this out ever since the concept of currency became a thing, but I’m sure we will learn our lesson this time and stop doing it. This can’t just be how it will always be until we drive ourselves to extinction stuck on this miserable rock, Right?

    • Cricket@lemmy.zip@lemmy.zipEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      We’ve been pointing this out ever since the concept of currency became a thing, but I’m sure we will learn our lesson this time and stop doing it.

      I think that this became an issue even before currency. It happened as soon as agriculture allowed for accumulation of resources, power, and wealth. I sometimes think that that was really the point when humanity took the wrong turn.

      • NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        “I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in human evolution. We became too self-aware; nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself."

    • AlexLost@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      Hey, the rock is fine, we’ve made society a miserable place. The pack is calling me…

      • rarsamx@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        Not a very good actor, but seems like a good person and he’s funny. He worked hard to be where he is so sure “the rock” is fine.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      Structural issues make egalitarian economic systems difficult. Wealth and social influence compound once another in a virtuous cycle. Wealth has a strong hereditary bias, even in socialist economic models. And violence is historically a powerful tool for accruing wealth. Very difficult to establish universal deterrence against violence.

      This isn’t a question of people being smart or stupid. It’s an elaborate balancing act that becomes exponentially more difficult as population size expands.

  • minorkeys@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    You mean letting a small group of people consolidate power under themselves is a danger to a system designed to evenly distribute power? No way!

  • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    Yeah, this isn’t anything new. Literally centuries old analysis here. I guess it’s nice they updated it for the contemporary society, though.

  • eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    I believe Plato pointed this out in The Republic.

    He thought the richest citizen needed to have no more then 5x the wealth of the poorest citizen or you would inevitably slide into oligarchy.

    • nuxi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      We crossed that threshold so long ago that you can make 5x the poverty level and still not be able to afford a house.

      • Jack_Burton@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        Well 5x0 is 0 so yeah. This sounds like a good system though. Desperate for that Billion clout? Make sure everyone else has 200mil first.

        • just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          0·
          4 months ago

          0 isn’t real, it is a social construct created by big math.

          You add by 0 and its still the same… what?

          You subtract by 0 and its still the same… why?

          You multiply by 0 and you BECOME 0, the heck?

          You divide by 0 and its… big not even a number just a concept… sure buddy!

    • cecilkorik@piefed.caEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      How strange that some Texas university was recently banning a professor from teaching Plato to students because it had too much “equality” in it.